I have never played a tank or healer character in WoW in any of the expansions dating back to BC. I felt my computer was never good enough since i would get slight lag, but for classic i will buying a new and improved one. My question is which is more sought after in 5 mans/raids. What is the skill gap between the two. And which usually more viable to PvP (world or BGs). I was super youmg when i started WoW so thats why i was drawn to DPS, but now that im older and more competent i would like to choose one of the two
Tanks are more wanted in dungeons because almost no one wants to tank. But once you are a in a guild: they usually have dedicated tanks for raids so its up in the air if you want to be tank or healer there.
Healers. Almost no one goes tank in PvP matches. All the warriors respec into arms for PvP. So if you don’t want to respec between PvE and PvP: Go healer.
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Tanks are more hand-eye coordination to keep track of threat meters, sunder stacks, mob pulling, and other in-game events while Healers are more co-operative coordination in terms having to manage your heals along with other healers to make sure you don’t over heal someone and managing HoTs if your class has one.
Thanks for the quick reply. As far as healer i was stuck between priest and shaman. I like that shaman have 3 different play styles (healer, melee dps, range dps), however i feel like they would be second to priest healing. Priest seems like a better choice for me because i would enjoy shadow when i dont want to heal (or if i can get that lucky 1 spot in a raid). But im scared to go oom so easily
You will get use to it. That’s why you have mana pots and other healers to back you up. Remember: You’re not the only healer in a raid. If all the healers go oom: then there is a problem in the DPS department that they can’t kill the boss fast enough. And in dungeons: your team will wait for you to refill on mana before pulling more mobs.
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Priests are the best all around healer. They have spells to handle most situations.
That said Shamans are still really good at multi-target healing with chain heal and have better utility than Priests because of totems. They also have some group mana regen with Mana Tide.
Horde raids generally bring plenty of both Priests and Shamans.
For not going oom, it’s mostly just a matter of practice and bringing consumables like mana potions and if you really want, Demonic or Dark Runes(restores mana at the cost of HP).
Plus like Heralf noted, you’ll have other healers in a raid to help and dungeon groups should be waiting on you to drink between pulls when you need mana.
Or just play a paladin and ask everyone “what is mana?” LUL
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Or that, which is what I did in Vanilla =P
Tank - Warrior
*if you want to raid.
Healer - Any class that can heal is a healer.
So healer gives you more class diversity and more options while leveling (killing things as a tank in Classic is time consuming to the point you can put it on auto attack and go make and eat a sammich before the mob dies)
2 tank spots vs. 6-8 healer spots. I would choose healer if your goal is to be sought after.
This I don’t think those that didn’t play back then don’t realize is that even though the raids are 40 people there is still only limited number of tank and healer spots with only 2 tanks per raid. DPS still makes up the majority of most raids.
There has always been more DPS spots than healer/tank because DPS is almost always disproportionately played.
Even in dungeons you have 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 DPS and yet DPS has the lowest demand for it.
Tanks have very limited spots in raids, but healers a lot less so. There may not be as many spots as DPS, but they’re still in higher demand because healing is a less common role for people to pick in the first place.
Tanking requires leadership, and healing doesn’t. If you don’t want to lead, then role a healer. If you don’t mind leading, tank is fun.
I agree, I’ve tanked most of my wow career. As the tank you are the shot caller. Now, before you get power tripping, that also means we get blamed when things go wrong. Coming from the DPS side of things, you’re about to get a culture shock, no matter which you pick. Tanks and healers rely, and watch out for each other. Like some weird club. When the tank doesn’t do his job, everyone dies, when the healer doesn’t do his job, everyone dies, when the DPS is asleep, a pull takes a bit longer than normal.
Being a tank/healer friendly DPS is optional. No one really expects you to do anything to assist us in our roles. But healers and tanks are like kindred spirits. Any tank that doesn’t watch healer mana dies alot, any healer that heals a DPS that pulled threat like an idiot vs. the tank kills a party. Tanks and healers are utility classes. We get off on either protecting people, or helping people, or both.
If there’s one thing you should take into account going tank or heals, know that as the tank, you’re the dad, and as the healer, you’re the mom. It has nothing to do with your genitals, that’s just the roles we play.
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And sometimes you just have to let the naughty children die, right Dad?
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The skill gap is as high as you want to put it.
Tanking can be boring and you can sit there, or you can be the dude that gets everyone through the dungeon in the fastest possible time, while adapting to the group your with. Watching healer mana, taking breaks in good spots, fixing that pull that went wrong every time it happens, etc.
you can squeeze every ounce of dps and improve each time you run, making the runs go even faster.
Healing can be boring and you can sit there and heal, or you can try and weave in some deeps while making sure people don’t die. You can make it so the dps don’t have to watch their health as much so they can stay focused on dps, making the group run smoother. You can encourage a tank to pull more and pull off monster level plays when no one dies.
It’s all up to you! You can be the average boring tank / heals that get things done by pulling and putting me to sleep in between, or you can be a rock star. Whatever you prefer: and most importantly, whatever is important to you.
We all set the pace of the dungeons and things we do. Tanks and heals have a lot more control over this because of the pulls and mana constraints. DPS have less value to this because since there are at least 3, it’s likely that one or hopefully at least two are going to be above the bar.
They’re all fun for different reasons, and I have taken turns playing them throughout some expansions.
Healing kinda boring but there can be a lot of pressure put on people who do it.
You will need tanks or some warrior to tank av bosses.
Healers have to be able to predict damage spikes and warriors have to anchor agro before people dps.
Both are similar skill requirement in pve, in pvp tanks may have it harder and need more skill in pvp. Healers in pvp are probably more viable in bgs, dps spec is way more viable then healers in world and maybe tank occasionally. In world pvp you are normally alone that is why I said what I said.
If you want to lead then be a tank, if you want to follow then be healer. It takes a lot of skill to do both roles but just as much as dps in classic era, you just have to think about your pulls or how you should go about healing.
Early dungeons can pretty much be done by any hybrid tank/dps/heal even if they aren’t heal or tank spec, but if your focusing on raids then you probably should go with warrior as tank, hyrbids as what ever you can get in as.
Tanking and healing are both a support role that is how they should be seen in pvp mostly through out wow but for classic who knows you probably will be super weak if you don’t get yourself a dps weapon as a tank.
If you chose priest you can mind control people and mind control can be the most important ability a healer has in a situation of ccing and throwing people off cliffs.
Well my conclusion is choose what ever has the funnest abilities and work on it, healings is very boring in world of pvp if you don’t have fun abilities like bear charge or mind control. If you want to be the leader of the group go with tank and be mindful that healers can control the group pace just as much as tanks can in classic with their mana issues.
Resto shaman are unique in that a raid will take 7-8 of them if they are available. Why? because their buffs only affect the group they are in, only last upwards of 2 minutes and they are very important raiding buffs. No other class in the game has such a large representation for a single role. Priests will occupy 3-4 slots if that many resto shaman are available and druids 0-2.
If you want a guaranteed raiding spot in any guild, play restoration shaman.
It’s important to realize that in tanking, dealing damage doesn’t matter as much as raising aggression towards yourself and keeping the enemy weakened. You will avoid using a lot of attacks you would go crazy with if you were filling a DPS role.
It’s not entirely true that the tank has to be the leader. It is useful because you generally want people to follow behind the tank, but you could have any member of the party be the advisor and tell you where to go and what to do.
Healing is something I don’t have a ton of experience with. Though my druid will be balance, I will likely do some resto as well to help out teammates in dungeons. There is a lot to keep an eye on as a healer, and a lot of your success can come down to the caution of your party members as well. You look out for the tank first, but you kind of have to have everybody’s back. In bigger groups, there’s usually multiple healers though.
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